The Trials
Ok, I'm tired, so I probably won't be posting this to AO3 until tomorrow or something but tumblr people get a treat. Anyway this connects to chapter 47 of A Hero Forged. The AO3 version will probably be a bit more polished or something. I'm too tired to be doing that right now.
---
“I want to get Amity her job back.” Luz crossed her arms as she glared at Malphas. She had to look serious if she had any hope of this working.
“Ok.” He shrugged.”
“I don't care what you-” she faltered. “What?”
“Amity’s, like, one of my best librarians. I’d love to, like, rehire her.” The bird demon said nonchalantly.
“Then why did you fire her?”
“She needs to know that her actions have consequences.”
“Oh… Then can I have her ID back?”
“No.”
Luz blinked. “But you just said you wanted her back!”
“It must be earned.”
Luz was going to strangle him. She didn't care that he was the head librarian. They could find someone else, but (now that she thought about it) that someone might not rehire Amity.
“Fine,” she huffed, “how do I earn her her job back?”
“Through trials!” The lights in the library flickered dramatically.
“Of course.” Luz groaned. Everything in the Isles was through trials.
“First task, feed the electric bugs. Gary didn't feed them this morning and we can’t have the lights flickering.”
Seems easy enough.
---
Luz yelped and ducked as a book flew at her head. The book had sharp teeth that could easily tear through her. Malphas caught it and held it by the spine as it snapped at her. “These are carnivorous books.” He told her. “They used to be harmless.”
“I think you mean ‘man-eating’ books.” She corrected.
“Only because Alan gave them a taste.”
She couldn't help but gulp.
“Is Alan ok?”
“He’s in the Conformitorium now.”
Was that better or worse? Luz couldn't decide.
“Oh.”
“Your task is to organize them by publication year and Author name.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“That’s, like, what they all say.”
He began to float away.
“That would have been more ominous without the ‘like’!” She called after him. He let go of the book, which channeled its inner predator and leapt at her. “Weh!”
She lifted her arms up, her suit covering them. The book sank its teeth into it with the strength of a clamp. She barely felt it.
“Oh.” She blinked. “This will be easy.”
---
Luz hummed to herself as she pulled the book off her arm. It took the elbow piece with it but the suit fixed it rather quickly.
“What a unique method.” she turned with a jump.
“Christ, Gary! Give a girl a heart attack, why don't ya?” She put the book on the shelf with some of the jerky Malphas left her.
“Sorry.” The nervous wreck of a witch fiddled with his thumbs.
“It’s cool. You need something?”
“No, Malphas just wanted me to check up on you.”
“Well, I’m doing fine.”
She tore the book from her shoulder, checked the author’s name and put it back. Wrong letter.
“I could help if you wanted.”
She grabbed one from her knee, checked and nodded to herself. There it was.
“Nah, I’m good. I've got a system.”
“You have a dozen or so books biting you.”
Now was the one on her shoulder.
She shrugged, “if it works, it works.”
“Where’s the rest?”
She pointed to the side where Spot was chasing various books.
“It’s a good workout.”
“O-ok.”
“Tell Malphas that he’s got to try better.”
“What?”
“No outside help.” She smirked.
Gary sputtered as Luz ignored him in favor of organization.
---
“Next is like a bit of a pest that the library has had.”
“Did the pixies get in the library too?” She joked. Malphas gave her a blank stare.
“No.” He opened the door to reveal a large mountain of paper. “Do be careful of the fire breath.”
“The what.”
---
Luz had given Spot her jacket after the mention of fire breath. Even if she had the Mark 6, she didn't want to risk it getting ruined in the time it took for her suit to fix itself.
She entered the room alone and wondered where the ‘pest’ was. It could be fire bees, but she couldn't see the nest anywhere. Before she could look around more, the mountain of paper rumbled and began to stand.
It had a long serpentine body that seemed to fill the entire room. It had four horns, two at the top of its likely head and two at the end of its narrow snout. Its face flared out in what could have been whiskers, she wasn't sure. Its legs were rather short when compared to the rest of its body and ended in a five clawed foot. The paper seemed to intertwine with another, creating a scale-like pattern. Over all it reminded Luz of the depictions of eastern dragons.
“Oh, fuck me.” She muttered as the dragon, which took up much of the room, stared down at her with oddly purple eyes.
It opened its mouth, revealing two sets of large, sharp fangs, and roared. Her arms rushed up as the nano-machines formed a large shield between them to block the fire that spewed from its maw. She was so fucked.
She lowered her shield when the fire finally stopped. She smiled nervously, “You wouldn't happen to be like Toothless, would you?”
It jolted forward in an attempt to bite her in two. Luz leapt back, her armor forming, the propulsion system finishing first to give her an extra boost.
“I’ll take that as a no!”
The dragon hissed at her as she regained her barings.
“I’ll add fighting a dragon to the list.” T.I.T.A.N. laughed.
“What list? And is now really the time?” She fired a repulsor beam at the dragon’s side.
“The ‘Hero Cliche’ list.”
The dragon didn't even seem bothered by the beam. It didn't even singe the paper. The dragon whirled around so fast Luz couldn't react in time. Within seconds the tail crashed into her midsection and she was being embedded into the wall.
She groaned as her back was lit on fire. It felt worse than that time Belos slammed her into a statue. “Ow.”
“A healing glyph has been formed on the left shoulder.”
“Thanks, T.I.T.A.N.” She pushed herself out of the wall. She pressed the glyph and was met with a wave of energy. “That’s better. Now, let’s fight fire with fire.”
She brought her hands together and the nanites shifted to form a large fire glyph in the palms.
Simultaneously, the dragon opened its mouth, embers building in the back of the throat.
“Fuck you, Oragami!” She screamed as a steady stream of fire flowed from her hands. The dragon met it with fire of its own. She could feel the heat start to permeate the suit and warm her palms.
Neither seemed to want to give up, creating a battle of wills. She refused to close, more glyphs formed. A half fire glyph formed between her fingers so that when she brought them together she had four additional glyphs, two on each hand. Another one formed on the leftover space on her palm.
They activated and it seemed Luz’s fire was beginning to win. She grinned. She didn't care if her hands were uncomfortably warm.
She overpowered it and her fire forced its way down the dragon’s throat. It coughed violently as she finally deactivated her glyphs.
She took this chance to land and pressed her palms onto the ground. Nanites rushed to the floor, spreading out. A circle surrounded the creature, lines began to form under it.
“Time for you to chill out.” She smirked as the ice glyph activated. A giant glacier encased it and Luz let out a sigh of relief as it froze.
She let her suit fall away. “That ought to have done it.”
God, she could use coffee at that point. Malphas first, then Amity, then she could go get coffee. That should have taken care of the ‘pest’ problem.
She didn't notice how the ice began to crack until it was too late. The glacier shattered into a million tiny pieces as the dragon released a mighty roar. Blunt and sharp bits of ice peppered her skin. “Shit!”
The Mark 6 reformed as quickly as she could get it. Something in her buzzed. She was tired and more than a little annoyed at this point.
She dodged another bout of fire as the annoyance turned to anger. That buzz, which was close to a bee, grew into a rapid stream. Her eyes burned as the dragon tried to impale her with its horns.
“Leave me alone!” She screamed. It was like the nanites had a mind of their own as they formed some new glyph. She didn't get a chance to look at it but it glowed blue, not unlike the ice glyph.
Water crashed down onto the dragon, soaking it. Any fire it had left died as the once white paper took a more gray color. It whimpered.
The anger faded and she blinked. “What in the…”
“I see you, like, tamed the paper dragon.” Malphas said behind her.
Had she? And what was that glyph? “Huh.”
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